The Camp Fire burns along a ridgetop near Big Bend, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018.

Photo: Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

In his 2016 book “California: A Fire Survey,” Stephen Pyne writes that the state “has not only a ferocity of flame but a cultural intensity that few places can match,” with a combustive landscape that “looks a lot like its society, politics and legislature, as they become ever more explosive and less manageable.”

This has been confirmed yet again the past few days, and at a horrific scale.

Those numbers grow larger each day, yet only hint at the intensity of loss. “I told him to get the hell out of there now,” the brother of one likely victim told The Chronicle’s Melody Gutierrez in a Thursday morning phone conversation. She described what happened next: “And then the line went silent. Every call went unanswered the rest of Thursday. Then the same silence on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

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The air quality is at dangerous levels up north, yet 4,000 firefighters don’t flinch. They don’t have time to pay attention to what’s going on away from the danger, such as President Trump’s tweeted ridicule of state forest policy. Though the president of the state firefighters on Sunday responded with a statement calling Trump’s criticism from afar “demeaning to those who are suffering as well as the men and women on the front lines.”

The “ferocity of flame” is raging down south as well, with fires stretching from the San Fernando Valley to the Malibu coast, killing two people and scorching homes of Hollywood celebrities. In an ideal world, firefighters would be heading south to help their comrades. Or vice versa. But in our “ever more explosive and less manageable” state, the times are not ideal.

Top of the News

•Jonestown, 40 years later:This is the story of the cameraman who lost his life on the jungle airstrip in Guyana during the attack on Rep. Leo Ryan and his entourage ordered by Jim Jones in 1978. This is the story of Bob Brown, who kept filming even as bullets flew by him and eventually pierced his flesh.

•Rights in question: When UC Berkeley’s Queer Alliance Resource Center asked the student Senate to condemn the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of rights for transgender people, and to step up support for “gender non-conforming students,” the vote was unanimous — except for one student who abstained, saying such a vote would compromise her Christian beliefs. Now, reports Nanette Asimov, the student is the target of an organized campaign prodding her to resign or be recalled.

•Beyond the ballots: Oakland will have three new City Council members in January, and a new city auditor with a reputation as a “more aggressive watchdog” than her predecessor, writes Kimberly Veklerov. Mayor Libby Schaaf predicts the change will do Oakland good, saying the city will have “a group of people that’s able to better work together.”

•Only in San Francisco: Remember Election Night last Tuesday, so many bleak news cycles ago? Columnist Caille Millner was at the incandescent City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, one of six authors giving brief readings amid election returns, pizza and beer. “All of us had independently decided to read poetry,” she writes. “It felt like the closest choice to prayer.”

•On to 2020: Former Mayor Willie Brown, a master of eye-popping political punditry, wonders in his latest column if we’ll see a presidential bid by — Marc Benioff? Da Mayor said it first. The Salesforce founder’s crusade to pass Proposition C “put him in the national spotlight as a leader in the movement for corporate social responsibility,” Brown muses. Besides, “Benioff has a sense of humor and a personality that doesn’t repel people, two things we could use more of in politics.”

•Affluent crowdfunding goes kaput: San Francisco’s RealtyShares debuted in 2013 with a concept that the founder likened to “a country club model of fundraising,” pairing affluent investors with people looking to buy commercial properties over the internet. Now it’s laying off most of its employees. Maybe country club types don’t need a dotcom’s help.

•High design in — San Ramon?: Bishop Ranch City Center opened over the weekend, and Bay Area architecture buffs might soon be making their first visit to suburban San Ramon. Why? Because the retail complex was designed by Renzo Piano — the celebrated Italian architect responsible for the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.

•Volleyball virtuoso: It makes sense that Kathryn Plummer loves the autobiography of Chris Kyle, the deadliest marksman in U.S. military history: The Stanford junior was ranked last year as the nation’s top collegiate volleyball player, and she’s only getting better. “She can pass. She can defend. She can block,” coach Kevin Hambly tells Tom Fitzgerald. “She can attack. She has all the shots.”

•Slice of life: Not only is there a world champion pizza-tosser, he’s based in Santa Cruz. Meet Justin Wadstein, whose far-flung Sleight of Hand pizza van makes the rounds of brewpubs and farmers markets, where he might shake your hand while spinning an in-process pie.

Stephen Curry holds his daughter Ryan after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals 101-92 to advance to the NBA Finals at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, on Monday, May 28, 2018.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

Forget the three championship rings and the two Most Valuable Player awards: It’s his off-court behavior that makes Warriors superstar Stephen Curry such an intriguing role model. The father of three, who over the summer became perhaps the only NBA player to host an all-girls basketball camp, spoke with Ann Killion about the responsibilities that come with his riches and fame: “I’m comfortable with knowing I’m not going to please everybody,” he said in a revealing interview before suffering a groin sprain that has him on sidelined. “You just have to stand for something. And you have to speak for people who can’t really speak for themselves. That’s why I feel it’s important.”

Bay Briefing is written by John King and sent to readers’ email inboxes on weekday mornings. Sign up for the newsletter here and contact King at jking@sfchronicle.com

John King is The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic, taking stock of everything from Salesforce Tower to public spaces and homeless navigation centers. A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of two books on San Francisco architecture, King joined The Chronicle in 1992 and covered City Hall before creating his current post in 2001. He spent the spring of 2018 as a Mellon Fellow in Urban Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C.